The Way I See It is a blog published at least three times a week containing thoughts and analysis and irreverent musings on the local, state, and national sports world.

Kirksville girls basketball team looking strong

About this blog

By Dennis Miller

My name is Dennis Miller and I am a lifelong resident of Kirksville, MO. I have been totally blind since birth and a sports fanatic just as long. I like all sports but love baseball and am a proud lifelong member of Cardinal Nation. It is my honor
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My name is Dennis Miller and I am a lifelong resident of Kirksville, MO. I have been totally blind since birth and a sports fanatic just as long. I like all sports but love baseball and am a proud lifelong member of Cardinal Nation. It is my honor to be given the opportunity to write a blog for the Kirksville Daily Express and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

The Kirksville High School Lady Tigers basketball team continues to win and win impressively as they soundly thrashed Mexico High School Monday evening. Mexico was supposed to have a very good team and may very well have a good team but Kirksville went down there and won by 32 points so I think that says a lot about the quality team the Lady Tigers have.

The Kirksville wrestling team also looked impressive in beating a tough Moberly squad on Tuesday.

Interesting goings on in the baseball world as of late. The Kansas City Royals seem to have adopted a new overall plan which is to try to win now instead of their usual trend of putting the cheapest team they can on the field. Long time readers of this blog will remember me saying several times during the past baseball season that all the Royals needed was starting pitching. They finally have that and mortgaged part of their future to get it and spent more money than they usually do in the process. The Royaals acquired two outsanding starting pitchers from the Tampa Bay Rays last week in exchange for a package of minor league prospects. In addition to that the Royals signed Urban Santana who has spent the last several years with the Angels and is capable of being a dominant pitcher although he struggles with control at times. The Royals also locked up Jeremy Guthrie the only real front line starting pitcher they had last year to a long term contract which gives them four bona fide starting pitchers along with several other pitchers who can compete for the fifth starter. This will hopefully give the Royals offense the support it needs and they can stop being on the short end of all those high schoring games they have been a part of the last few years. A team can’t expect to compete without good starting pitching and the Royals appear to finally have that.

The St. Louis Cardinals have been much more quiet this off season but didn’t have a lot of needs going into the off season and the one need they did have which was for a lefthanded specialist was met by the signing of Randy Choate. I was saddened to learn the Cardinals were close to a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers which would send utility infielder/outfielder Skip Shumaker to the Dodgers for the proverbial player to be named later but I understand Shumaker’s desire for more playing time and more at-bats both of which he is likely to get in LA. It also reunites him with hitting coach Mark McGwire and is a better geographic fit for Shumaker whose home is in southern California. However, I’ve been watching Shumaker since 2005 when he first came up to the majors and will miss seeing him play. He still has a great deal of potential but circumstances have never been such that he could really show it.

Speaking of the Dodgers, they have certainly been busy during the off season as their payroll is now approaching the national debt. They now have eight starting pitchers under contract which could lead to one or two of them being dealt for bench help or they could be converted to relief pitchers. With the increase in payoll comes the pressure to win and win now so it will be interesting to see what the new richest team in baseball can pull off in 2013.

The NHL season looks more in jeopardy with the passing of each day. The sides appear to be no closer to reaching an agreement then they were two months ago and this season looks like it could be a total wash. This would mark the first time a major sport has lost an entire season to a labor dispute. As I have said before in this blog the dispute was caused by the owners locking out the players due to a situation the owners themselves created. The people who suffer from this silliness are the fans and the arena workers and others who depend on the NHL for their salary and for work during the winter months. One thing that has to be discouraging for the NHL is that there certainly doesn’t appear to be much clamor from fans to start the season and get the work stoppage over with. One thing the NHL has to be prepared for is backlash from fans as they may very well decide to spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere when the work stoppage is finally over. Major League Baseball, the NBA and even the NFL dealt with that on some level when they had short work stoppages but the NHL is a little different in that the financial hit could impact the league on a much greater scale thus crippling the league even more than it already is. They already struggle for TV exposure and fan recognition and this mess certainly isn’t going to help that.

Finally, I’m hearing rumors that at least one gym in the Kirksville area shows the Food Network on its TV’s while people are working out. Isn’t that self defeating? There’s nothing like watching Deep Fry Mania or some show like that while doing ab crunches or watching Cake Boss while you are on the elliptical. I have a suggestion for those who are dealing with the conflicting emotions caused by working out while watching The Food Network: come to FKS Training located at 616 E. Shepherd Avenue. Not only is it an excellent place to reach your fitness goals but their TV’s are tuned to ESPN or one of the news channels if golf is on because nobody wants to watch golf while they are working out. I got them to tune in The Price Is Right one day but they did it under protest and I had to pay extra for it. Check out their Web site at: http://www.fksfitness.com.

Now that I have most likely violated some sort of rule regarding free advertising in the Kirksville Daily Express I’m done. If I’m not fired or forced to watch The Food Network I’ll be back on Friday with a look ahead to this weekend’s sports action. Please continue to support the other blogs on this site and thanks as always for taking the time to read this one.